29th Mission of Mercy to Zimbabwe

The team will leave from the Church at 5am on Thursday 20 July and travel to Bulawayo Baptist Church. Passengers contribute toward the cost of the trip. On arrival at the Bulawayo Baptist Church we will offload all the Holiday Club material and grocery boxes from Dorcas Aid International for the Churches social concerns programme. Friday morning at the Bulawayo Church we get an update on the 25 street kid’s ministry and offload supplies. At 10am we meet with Bishop Mudenda who heads up the Tonga Bible translation project for feedback on their progress. We will offload a wheelchair for a Tonga person who has lost both legs.

Later in the morning we visit the Isaiah’s Home for abandoned Babies/Toddlers, providing supplies e.g. Nan baby formula and sweets for the toddlers. After lunch at the Maulins home we will visit the Sandra Jones Home for abused girls aged 4 years to 18 years and after giving out sweets to the young children we meet with the 30 teenage girls who are all rape victims. We will have the specially made-up toiletry packs for them and will hear testimonies, share sweets with them and play our numbers game that will give each girl at least 2 US Dollars pocket money.

We will do a tour of the farm to see their chicken and rabbit program and large vegetable garden. Later in the afternoon we visit the Rehoboth Home run by Mark and Dorcas and their 9 fostered children, 8-16 years old. We take up groceries, clothes and other supplies for them. Each year the children learn a new chapter of scripture and recite it to us.

Saturday morning we leave at 6am for Harare. We drive to the Karanda Mission Hospital Head Office in Harare to offload wheelchairs, walker crutches etc. and medicines. At 2pm we meet with the Rafiki Girls Skills training programme and will spend some time with them handing out 32 Bibles as well as the toiletry packs and sweets. We play the numbers game that will give them a few Dollars each to cover their bus fare to the Harare Central Church for the afternoon. We will have a time of refreshments with them with fruit and biscuits and cool drink. It is always a delight to hear testimonies from girls who have completed the 9 month course at the church and are now gainfully employed supporting siblings. Most of the girls are orphans between 18-25 years from the more rural areas and have passed the selection criteria for the course. Their singing is always a treat. We have taken up material and sowing machines in the past.

Sunday morning we will attend the 8am service at Harare Central Baptist Church and then visit a church plant that meets in a School Hall East of Harare. The Church group numbers about 25 and we have taken Bibles in the past and at the end of last year we sent up a small sound system. We usually take fruit, biscuits, sweets and cool drink for a time of fellowship after the service. In the past one of our teams sang a Shona chorus in the service. Sunday afternoon we start our journey back to Bulawayo for the night. Monday morning we travel to Beitbridge and then on to Tshipise to relax in the Hot Mineral Baths. On Tuesday we travel back to the Church arriving early afternoon enriched by the experience.

In addition to the holiday club material that will be taken to Bulawayo Baptist, the following will need to be taken: